Partisanship & Campaign Event Attendance - Kate Bailey

My research allows for a deeper understanding of American politics and suggests which citizens are likely to be the most engaged. I was motivated to ask the question because I had been discussing politics with a family member who is registered as an independent. The family member happened to be uninterested in the campaign rally happening down the street, neither strongly disliking the candidate, nor liking them to the point they wished to attend. This was strange to me as most other individuals in my life (who happen to be strong partisans) would have either jumped on the chance to attend or stayed as far away from the area as they could. I feel it is important to measure as American politics are so hostile right now, that the country could learn from the proven “indifference” of registered independents.

My research speaks to the themes of political engagement, sorting, and polarization. Political engagement is a given, as attending campaign rallies is a direct indication of engagement. Sorting comes into play when people allow themselves to be allocated into the role of strong democrat or strong republican and thoroughly enjoy the social aspect of it. These groups are usually at conflict with each other forcing them to ideologically separate from another. This also deals with polarization as the sorting causes a political divide.

Partisanship & Event Attendance (Time Trend)

Partisanship & Event Attendance (Regression)

Ideology and Political Engagement - Erin Bostic

My research helps to explain the relationship between political ideology and political participation. My research adds to the understanding about which ideology, Liberals or Conservatives, is more likely to participate politically. I was motivated by the divide between the two ideologies in the last election (2016) and also the increase rate of political participation in the recent years. Also by Putnam’s findings that although more people are becoming politically engaged, less people are voting. The evidence found is important because it gives an idea on which ideology participates more given a controversial issue. This knowledge could help us to predict the participation levels by ideology in the future.

My analysis of trends in political activity between liberals and conservatives over the last 50 years shows that overall, liberals were more likely to politically active than conservatives.

I am also interested in the relationship between policy preferences and political participation. My next graph shows the attitudes about abortion by ideology in 1980 and 2016. The liberals are represented in blue while conservatives. are in red. In both 1980 and 2016 liberals expressed high opinions about abortion being unrestricted while a lot of less conservatives expressed opposite ideas. This graph shows that liberals in both 1980 and 2016 were more politically engaged on the idea of abortion than conservatives.

Ideology and Political Engagement (Time Trend)

Ideology and Attitudes on Abortion

Media Exposure and Engagement - Aleenih Carter-Key

My research investigated the idea of how does mass media impact civic engagement. This research added to my understanding of politics because it helped me really see how much screen time and other media rallies up the masses to get them to participate politically. I was motivated to ask this question because I use mass media very often and I always am exposed to political content; so, I thought that this was a great topic to explore. This knowledge is important because it shows that people who are more often exposed to certain types of media are more likely than those who are not exposed to certain types of media to be civically engaged.

My first coefficient plot presents the results of a logit regression of the likelihood of voting. This model shows that people that listen to the radio or read newspapers frequently are more likely to vote than people who watch TV frequently, even when controlling for other sources of media

My next plot presents the results of a logit regression of the likelihood of attending a campaign event or rally. My results show that people who frequently read the newspaper and listen to the radio for political information are significantly more likely to go to meetings than those who watch tv.

Media Exposure and Voting (Regression)

Media Exposure and Campaign Event Attendance (Regression)

Media Consumption and Engagement - Hannah Davis

My research shows that consuming election related content on certain types of media, specifically newspaper and radio, increases the likelihood that someone votes. Understanding what motivates the public to vote helps political scientists understand trends in society. It also helps campaigns focus their efforts where they will make the biggest impact. For example, according to my research, people who watch election related content on TV are not as likely as people who do the same on the radio or newspaper to vote, so campaigns should put more energy into newspaper and radio campaign content because those voters are the most likely to actually vote for them.

Decline in Media Consumption (Time Trend)

Media Consumption and Voting (Regression)

Education and Engagement - Esther Eikins

My research looked at how an individual’s socioeconomic background effects their political participation. The first half of this class was reading Campbell and Putnam and analyzing the possible factors for the decline of political participation in the US. Due to these readings, I was interested in understanding not only why people are politically engaged, but what kinds of people are politically engaged. I hypothesized that individuals with a higher socioeconomic status would be more politically active because they have better access to resources and possibly have more incentive—especially because Putnam tells us that better educated people are more likely to be politically engaged. I think this knowledge is important because we constantly study how and why people choose to be politically engaged in this country and my research provides one piece of the puzzle.

My first figure is a graph that measures average level of political engagement by education. Political engagement is measured here as a scale measuring involvement in various types of political activity (voting, discussing politics, campaign work, wearing a button, donating to a candidate, etc.). The blue line represents people who are college educated, the pink line shows people who have a high school level education, and the green line measures people with a grade school level education. The graph shows that the higher the level of education (at least college educated), the more political engaged a person is.

My next figure presents te results of a logit regression esimating the effect of an individual’s level of education on their likelihood of working on a political campaign. This model controls for race/ethnicity, age, gender, and survey year. These results indicate that the more highly educated a person is, and the higher their income, the more likely they are to work on a campaign. This raises the possibility that the class of people involved in political campaigns have economic interests that are different from those less well-off.

Education and Engagement (Time Trend)

Education and Campaign Work (Regression)